People with impaired mobility may find it easier to move through KDays this year as the 10-day festival partners with Edmonton startup Click&Push Accessibility.
Through the company's The ATLAS app, users can notify event organizers of barriers, like a ramp that's broken or too steep. Event organizers can then fix the issue immediately or plan to change the venue's infrastructure permanently to make it more accessible. Visitors, meanwhile, can also see potential barriers ahead of time and better plan their visits.
"Our pilot collaboration with Click&Push will allow us to create a direct line of communication with users of our public spaces," Melissa Radu of Explore Edmonton (the organization that runs the festival) said in a release. "This will enable swift responses to reported obstacles for persons with limited mobility, (and) allow us to obtain insights into barriers to accessibility and use these insights in enhancing the inclusivity of our spaces."
Users can also record positive accessibility features, Click&Push president Sydney Hampshire told Taproot. "We don't just focus on the quote-unquote bad — we're also talking about, this space does have an accessible washroom, it does have a really nice elevator, the point of purchase sales devices are in a good spot that you can reach them if you're sitting or if you're standing," she said.
KDays will be the first multi-day festival that the app is available to the public.
Since Click&Push's app was offered to the public in March, it has been used by the organizers of Spring Fest and Manning Motor Show at Manning Town Centre. Before the app was public, the software was used through custom contracts for accessibility audits at University of Alberta libraries and the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival.
Isha Katyal, Click&Push's CEO, said she hopes able-bodied people will also download the app and record accessibility barriers and features. "Accessibility is a shared responsibility," she said.
The company's goal is to contribute to a fully accessible Canada by 2040, which Katyal said requires all federally regulated organizations to have a way to gather feedback on the accessibility of their events. Currently, that feedback is collected through a 10-page form, but Katyal said since everyone has a smartphone, the app could help streamline the process.
The app is free to download and use, while event organizers pay Click&Push to use it. The KDays partnership started when Katyal reached out to Explore Edmonton to see if the app could help make the city more accessible for residents and tourists of all abilities. Katyal asked Edmonton Unlimited's Capital City Pilots if it could match Explore Edmonton's funding so the app could be used at KDays.
Katyal said the KDays pilot will help improve the app, and that the company next hopes to add some artificial intelligence features and user verification.
Photo: The ATLAS app was used at events in Manning Town Centre earlier this year.(LinkedIn)